Malhotra appointed IPL tourney director

Ex-army officer Dhiraj Malhotra has been appointed as the tournament director for the second season of the IPL.

Catherine Simpson, of International Management Group, was appointed the joint tournament director of the T20 League and, along with Malhotra, would be in overall charge of cricket operations, programming and logistics during the 45-day event, a media release from IPL said.

Malhotra has been with the International Cricket Council for the last three years and has the experience of handling the inaugural T20 World Cup in South Africa in 2007 as well as the World Cup in the West Indies held in March-April that year behind him.

In addition, he has worked on various Champions Trophies and Under-19 World Cups.

Catherine Simpson has been working with IMG to promote cricket in the sub-continent and the Caribbean since 1994. She has also worked with the company on Wimbledon, Rugby World Cups and Miss World beauty pageants.

The IPL and IMG have also appointed tournament venue operations managers. They are: Jaipur - Rob Hillman and Rakesh Aggarwal; Mumbai - Bikram Singh and Jeremy Parker Tomkinson; Kolkata - Romi Bhandari; Bangalore - Max Heddy; Mohali - Tony Gavin and Kamal Mehra; Hyderabad - Paul Skinner and Rohit Sequeira; Delhi - to be announced.

They would look after the day-to-day operations of the venues in the lead-up to the inaugural match scheduled for Jaipur on April 10, the release said.